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A friend of mine has a hard drive that has crashed. It's not Windows on the hard drive, but the drive itself that has gone bad. When the computer boots, it can't find an operating system. After going into the BIOS, I see that the computer isn't recognising anything on the IDE channel. I have put a hard drive I know works into the computer and it booted fine, so I know it's not the IDE channel.

I slaved the drive to the hard drive in my computer, but when I went to boot, the computer didn't show any devices on the IDE channel. When booting, the drive doesn't show any activity of any kind. It doesn't vibrate like the platters inside are turning, nor does it make any noises like it's loading any data off the drive.

It is my opinion that the drive itself is okay (she didn't tell me that it was making funny noises before it crashed; just one day it wouldn't boot), but that the drive's power connector has gone bad. I do not think the computer is still under warranty.

So my questions are these:

1) Does my prognosis sound accurate?

2) If it is the power connector, how can I fix this? Do I need to go the manufacturer or is this a repair I can perform myself?

3) If she needs to replace this hard drive, how can she (inexpensively) get some data off of the drive if the power connector is shot? I think most of the stuff she wants is personal stuff (pictures, email, documents, etc.), but she'd like them back. Can I get those data without sending the drive to a data recovery operation? If not, how much do data recovery people charge for this sort of thing?

Thanks in advance.

1) Might be, if the hard disk was damaged the IDE channel should have recognise it and you whould be able to see it in windows even if it was full of bad sectors so it must be the power connector or the data cable connector.

2) I don't think you can do it your self, you might need to contact the manufacturers.

Hope that helps a little.

@HLD, would this by any chance be a Fujitsu MPG3xxx series drive? About 1 or 2 years old?

I had a similar problem, if i install this particular hard drive (a seagate) it actually stops the PC from booting all together, take it out and it works fine, change master, slave, cable select all of it, doesn't make any difference.

The reason it is dead is something to do with Seagates overlay technology, someone else configured the PC for me and stuck it on, i shaln't go into the details of what it does but it ain't good, so i got someone to try and remove it and in doing so they completely knackered it. I can't recall what they did, but this 8GB hard disk is just gone, no ressurection for it IMO. So sometimes these things are just dead...

It's a Maxtor Quantum Fireball CX 10.2 GB 7200 RPM drive.

Has anyone ever gone to a data recovery company to try an retrieve data off of a damaged/dead hard drive? I'm wondering how much it would cost.

Originally posted by HighLordDave
Has anyone ever gone to a data recovery company to try an retrieve data off of a damaged/dead hard drive? I'm wondering how much it would cost.

Yes, they cost a lot, a lot more than the hard disk is worth. I can't recall the specifc figures, if you remind me i will ask someone tomorrow in work

This has happened to me on a western digital drive same thing as you explained I narrowed it down to a loose pin on the power connector. I resoldered it and it's been okay for about 6 months now.

I would like to add Becareful if you try this I have alot of exp. in soldering. I also had nothing to lose at this time so please keep this in mind if you try this. If you have a voltmeter with ohms settings it will aid you if this is the case.